Westin Grand Vancouver = Good Hotel Leaving to Join Hilton Chain
Introduction I had a quick stay at Westin Grand as part of a mattress run in Vancouver and I was pleased overall by the hotel given the price. I wish breakfast had included hot dishes but the suites are nice and Westin Grand compares favorably to other hotels in this price range such as Hyatt Regency, Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, and Delta. Check In We arrived at 10am, we were able to get our room early and were offered 4pm check-out as well which was appreciated. Room The vast majority of rooms at this hotel are suites; I booked the lowest category of suites which are quite small at 33-36 square meters, but I was upgraded to an executive suite corner with a covered balcony which is 53 square meters. This is the top room type except that some suites have mountain views or city views; mine did not have views so a bit lower in the pecking order. Because the upgrade was more generous than the very modest upgrade I received at Delta, I ended up in a more spacious suite and the room felt more comfortable and a notch above in terms of hardware quality compared to Delta despite the latter not being too bad either. Fairmont only upgraded us to a corner room, not a suite, so our room at Westin was superior due to space available. Hyatt Regency is the only hotel where we recently stayed for which I can say suites can compete in some ways with Westin; the suites at HR are far bigger than at Westin and have two full bathrooms which was very convenient. However the suite at HR was a bit more basic – Westin had a better finishes. A way Westin could improve would be to add Netflix on TV which was not available in the room, unlike at Delta and JW Marriott. Dining The restaurant was closed due to covid but we could get a breakfast bag to go. Options were fairly basic and comparable to Hyatt Regency, which is better than Delta which offered nothing at all, but below Fairmont which had a nice a la carte menu with hot dishes brought to the room as in-room dining. Wifi Wifi worked ok with download speeds of 10 Mbps. However upload was only 2 Mbps which made internet calls not as easy as other hotels with faster internet. Overall Overall for the price Westin Grand was decent and I would recommend this property. Coincidentally they are leaving the Marriott chain and it’s unclear what they will change once they become a Hilton. Perhaps there could be an uptick in the quality of breakfast because Hilton normally includes hot dishes for Hilton Diamond guests, unlike Westin hotels where the breakfast elite benefit is normally continental only. Within Marriott there are other choices in Vancouver besides Westin while Hilton was sorely lacking so I think the move makes some sense and I will probably try this hotel again once it’s under the Hilton banner.